PLEASANTON
-- Two scientists at Lawrence Livermore Laboratory and a UC Berkeley
researcher are among 100 scientists who are publicly proclaiming
their doubts about Charles Darwin's theory of natural selection.

The scientists
have signed a statement that's being used by a
Seattle-based group as ammunition in its attacks on "Evolution,"
a
seven-part television series airing this week on public television
stations nationwide.

The Discovery
Institute, which circulated the statement, alleges that
the series does not present all sides of what the group maintains is
a scientific debate over the validity of Darwin's theories.

The institute
promotes a theory known as "intelligent design," which
holds that the actions of a thoughtful creator, not random mutation
and natural selection, best explain life on Earth.

Producers
of "Evolution" contacted the Discovery Institute in an
attempt to include the group's views in the program. But the group
decided not to participate when its members learned that their
theories would be discussed only in the final segment of the series,
"What About God?"

"We
wanted to talk about science, and they wanted us to do Sunday
school," said Mark Edwards, a spokesman for the Discovery Institute.
"The final episode paints a picture that the only critics of
Darwinian theory are these guitar-strumming hillbillies in Kentucky
who are creationists, and that's just not true. We're glad we're not
part of that stereotype."

Proponents
of the "intelligent design" theory come from many faiths
and don't advocate the views of a particular religion, Edwards said.

The executive
producer of "Evolution," Richard Hutton, said that the
final episode was where the group's views belonged, because the
theory of "intelligent design" has not been debated in peer-reviewed,
scientific journals.

"If
the ideas were tested in the way science is traditionally tested,
I would feel very differently about the nature of what they have to
say," Hutton said.

Hutton,
a science journalist who also produced the PBS documentary
series "The Brain" and "The Mind," said he's also
read a "viewer's
guide" the Discovery Institute has published in response to his
program.

The group
posted the viewer's guide on its Web site,
www.reviewevolution.com, and hopes teachers will use the 152-page
critique of all seven episodes if they show the series in their
classrooms. Among the allegations in the viewer's guide is a claim
that the series "mischaracterized the details of Darwin's life
to
promote the scientist-vs.-fundamentalist stereotype that runs
throughout the series."

Hutton
denied those and other allegations.

"I've
discussed it with scientists and historians ... we stand by our
series as factually accurate and appropriate," Hutton said. "The
Design Institute has leveled some very broad charges, and the
question is what's right, and what's not."

Hutton
has scientists like Bruce Alberts, president of the National
Academy of Sciences, in his corner. Alberts has compared the
Discovery Institute's criticism of the television series, which
concludes Thursday, to an attack on the scientific process itself.

Eugenie
C. Scott, executive director of the National Center for
Science Education in Oakland, said one problem with intelligent
design is that its proponents have put forward few specific theories
that can be tested by their peers.

"These
guys don't have a scientific model," she said. "All they have
is a bunch of assertions that evolution didn't happen. Because they
don't produce anything that's of scientific value, they're not taken
seriously."

The center
has posted its defense of the series on its Web site,
www.ncseweb.org.

To help
publicize their views, about four weeks ago, members of the
Discovery Institute set out to gather signatures from scientists from
around the nation.

The scientists
were asked to sign a statement declaring they were
"skeptical of claims for the ability of random mutation and natural
selection to account for the complexity of life" and that "careful
examination of the evidence for Darwinian theory should be
encouraged."

The scientists
hadn't seen the PBS series but were aware that the
Discovery Institute would use the statement to criticize it, Edwards
said.

Ted Saito,
one of two Lawrence Livermore researchers to sign the
statement, described himself in an interview Tuesday as "a committed
Christian. I strongly believe in the biblical account (of Earth's
creation)."

Although
the physicist hadn't seen the series, he was willing to sign
the statement because "there's just a tremendous lack of evidence
(in
the fossil record), where you can see one species evolving into
another."

Another
who signed the statement, UC Berkeley postdoctoral researcher
Jed Macosko, said his willingness to question conventional thinking
about evolution has made it harder for him to find work and gain
acceptance from colleagues.

The 29-year-old
Berkeley resident said that if he is eventually able
to conduct research on the theory of intelligent design, he believes
he may have to start his own journal to get it published.

"I
think intelligent design means widening the box of the scientific
universe," the microbiologist said. "It's unfortunate that
the
intellectual gatekeepers have rendered it inadmissible evidence in
the court of science."

For more
information and contrasting views on the series "Evolution,"
visit www.pbs.org, www.reviewevolution.com, and www.ncseweb.org on
the Web.